Airbnb has its own university to meet its tailor-made demands
What's the story
Airbnb is now revolutionizing how tech-based companies operate its own self-styled university-style program. While companies, both tech, and non-tech, across the world are striving to provide the best services, the lack of trained data scientists seems to obstruct the way for optimal use of resources. With Data University, Airbnb aims to tackle this problem head on. Here's all about it.
University
Airbnb's university-style initiative for employees
Airbnb's Data University strives to make the workers of the company more aware of the data and tools suited to Airbnb's own operation, as online programs like Coursera and Udacity courses were generic in nature and, therefore, didn't fit the bill. Airbnb's courses have been broken down in three defined levels to provide instruction to their various employees, based on their expertise needs.
Lesson
The first two tiers of data literacy
The course starts with "Data Awareness", which includes classes on "data-informed decision making, intro to stats and data resources" that is applicable for all. The middle tier has classes on "Data Collection and Visualization" which includes lessons on "core data, SQL, Superset, Tableau, EPF and Knowledge Repo" and will enable the non-technical workforce to take on technical positions like a project manager.
Course
The final leg of the course
The final class, which is "Data at Scale", is designed to make the engineers more adept in their job with lessons on "Hive, Airflow, R, Python, Machine Learning, and Data Logging." It works with three defined goals, "Designing an accessible curriculum for everyone, working with leadership across the company to set data literacy expectations and finding ways to measure success."
Successful
A sound data science program
The program, which was launched back in 2016, has been attended by Airbnb's 500 employees at least once and has led to an increase in the usage of Airbnb's internal data and science tools to 45% from 30%. Airbnb now plans to expand this data education program to all 22 of its offices, a move that will benefit the firm in the long run.